Computer systems typically include bulk storage systems, such as magnetic disc drives, optical storage devices, tape drives, or solid state storage drives, among other storage systems. In these computer systems, a host system, such as a network device, server, or end-user computing device, communicates with external bulk storage systems to store data or to access previously stored data. These bulk storage systems are traditionally limited in the number of devices that can be included per host and also have large physical space requirements due to the separate physical packaging of individual storage drives, which can be problematic in storage environments where higher capacity, redundancy, and reliability is desired.
Networked computer systems typically include network interface equipment, such as network interface cards, which provide physical access to one or more packet or frame-based networks, such as Ethernet. This interface equipment can be controlled by software, such as operating systems, drivers, and the like, to handle the various network traffic that traverses the network interfaces and an associated network stack. Front-end buffering and queue systems are inefficient for storage transaction handling with respect to associated storage devices. These shortcomings can be especially pronounced with the increasing data storage and retrieval needs in networked, cloud, and enterprise environments.